Buck Harvey: What Popovich couldn’t say — it wasn’t our night

MIAMI — Gregg Popovich went at his guys again, because this is what he does. He tells them what he thinks they need to hear on a certain night and, Tuesday, he thought they needed a scolding.

“We should be embarrassed,” he said.

He thinks this will help them next time. But he also knows this stance is better than acknowledging what really happened. There wasn’t much the Spurs could have done, no matter how physical they became, because this is what happens when LeBron James makes outside shots.

Mostly, you lose.

Mostly, you don’t lose like this. The Spurs scored 35 points in the first quarter without shooting a free throw, which might be an NBA first. Then, in the span of the third quarter, the Spurs went from a 14-point lead to wondering when Popovich would pull the starters to get ready for Orlando tonight.

Ever seen anything like it?

“Never,” said Richard Jefferson, and he’s been in the league for only 10 years.

There was certainly something to Popovich’s I-felt-we-folded speech. The Heat played the first half as if all of them had caught James’ cold, then began the second by blitzing and cutting. The Spurs, led by a suddenly unsure Tony Parker, had no response.

Still, when someone such as Mike Miller comes off the bench, playing for the first time all season, and throws in all six of his shots, all 3-pointers, well, how physical would the Spurs have had to be? Rarely do teams lose with an 18-point windfall like that.

But it started with James, not Miller, and with a similar reversal. While Miller hadn’t attempted a 3-pointer this season before Tuesday, James had made only three.

James swished that many in the third quarter alone, and maybe he only thought that was fair. When Danny Green ended the second quarter as he did the first, with a last-second 3, it happened at halfcourt with James next to him.

James looked at his bench with wide eyes, as if to say, can you believe it?

In the third quarter, James gave another look. Then, after his third 3-pointer, Popovich called time out, and James gave a long, significant stare at the Spurs’ bench.

Why?

“If they are going to back off,” he said, “I’m going to shoot.”

But everyone backs off of him, and that’s been the genesis of his playoff collapses in Cleveland and last year against Dallas. James can lose all confidence in his jumper and, with that gone, he loses confidence in everything else.

Bruce Bowen used the strategy in the 2007 Finals. If you give James anything, you give him the area behind the arc where he’s less than 33 percent for his career. Kawhi Leonard played James as Bowen did, but James turned into what he can be, which is the best player in the world.

Tim Duncan witnessed both 2007 and Tuesday. And afterward, when told what Popovich had said to the media, Duncan’s answer was telling.

“LeBron was coming down hitting tough ones,” he said. “That’s what you want guys to do. Every once in a while, someone’s going to get in the zone.”

Embarrassed?

Duncan didn’t sound that way.

That said, everything can’t be attributed to the other team shooting well. Duncan and the Spurs are one of only three teams that are winless on the road, and they face another test tonight in Orlando.

So Popovich will push on, correcting what he can, chewing out the Spurs when he isn’t encouraging them. And, in doing so, he will never give in to the reality of these nights, not as Parker did when he was asked about James.